Blood Lust
by timydamonkey
Summary: Sequel to Corruption set ten years afterwards. The new Dark Lord rose ten years ago and is still presenting the Wizarding World with many problems… meanwhile, Harry is questioning his sanity and Ginny is refusing to take sides in an aimless war… HIATUS.


Blood Lust: 

Chapter One: Blue Eyes: 

Ginevra Weasley sat staring at the floor. She wasn't really in the most unusual place – she was in _Weasley's Wizard Wheezes_, her brothers' shop – but it was the reason that she was there that was so unusual.

Well, she hadn't been told what that reason was, exactly. However, from how serious her brother had treated it, she gathered that it was something important – and a joke shop was not the most practical place to discuss something important. Her brother wasn't there. There was a time when he would have constantly been there, but George was quite serious nowadays, ever since Fred had died. It was like reality had slammed into him then, and he'd dedicated himself to finding the Death Eaters – and Dark Lord – who'd killed him.

Well, finding them wasn't that hard. You just had to get the_ Daily Prophet _and see where there had been massacres. That was a sure sign to the new Dark Lord – he practically made himself a pathway. The other bit was much harder: extracting his revenge by killing him. George was no match for the Dark Lord and he knew it; they all knew it. That was the only reason that George hadn't run off after him straight away: it would be a waste of a life.

The reality of the whole situation had hit him far more slowly than the rest of the family, though; it had been Ron's death that had done it for them, really. Her mother would have calmed herself down by talking to Harry and Hermione, his best friends, but they were both dead, too. They'd all died together, apparently – Ron and Hermione's bodies had been found in the same place. Harry's had never been found, but there were fears that the new Dark Lord had completely obliterated him as he was the only one standing between himself and complete takeover of the Wizarding World – he hadn't betted on Dumbledore living, though, so outright takeover was impossible. Ginny was very glad. Witnesses had said that Ron was killed by Voldemort – nobody was afraid of saying his name anymore; it seemed silly when they had a much bigger threat than him looming over their heads – but that Hermione had been killed by the new Dark Lord. This seemed to confirm the suspicions that the man was the reason for Harry's disappearance, too.

There were no other pieces of information about the Dark Lord – those who'd been there to witness his birth and had escaped with their lives had had their memories modified. Fudge had said that this was because there was no such thing as a new Dark Lord, but when the reports of the killings came in, he'd had to relent and agree that there might be such a thing. The new explanation hadn't been told to the Minister of Magic or many people in general, mainly just those who'd been around to witness Harry Potter's predicament – they believed that the memory modifications were to make Fudge think it looked too suspicious and ignore it as lies, giving time for the new 'Dark Empire' (as Ginny had nicknamed it) to rise. Many people who knew were bitter with Fudge about it, but Ginny thought that it was a rather ingenious plan – oh, the new Dark Lord was very intelligent - particularly in battles; no one would deny that. It was almost like he'd been through too many battles to know so much about them. Personally, Ginny really didn't like to think about it.

Oh, things were different from how she remembered them being as she grew up. Things had to change, of course, but she couldn't really decide if the changes were for the better or the worse. For every advantage there seemed to be a disadvantage: she just found it impossible to judge. Most people she knew were very much aligned with the Light and said the ruling was unjust, but they didn't seem to think twice about it. They didn't see the advantages that were right under their noses, just grabbed blindly at what seemed to be worse. Ginny had done her best to remain neutral; perhaps something that had saved her life a few times – although not siding with the 'Dark Empire', she hadn't gone around saying how horrible they were: most people who had were either dead, missing or had narrowly avoided death by some rather mad Death Eaters. People's thoughts about the ruling were generally better kept private - that was the way that people now looked at it, because meeting the Death Eaters generally wasn't good for your health.

Strictly speaking, there were no Death Eaters anymore. They were just a group of men and women who went around killing people senselessly. Ginny still called them Death Eaters though, as there really seemed to be little difference and the group mainly consisted of Voldemort's old Death Eaters. It was bad enough with the new Dark Lord – nobody knew his name, he was just 'The Dark Lord' – this one seemed twenty times worse than Voldemort. Nobody had even thought that that would be possible. This was one of the things that people had dubbed being worse than when Voldemort reigned. It just baffled Ginny, because there had been Death Eaters when he had been around, too. It was a similarity, not a difference, so it couldn't be compared.

Her mother had said that the deaths were meaningless, now. Ginny had always thought that Voldemort had killed mindlessly with no meaning, too, but apparently he had thought he was doing it for the greater good: getting rid of Muggleborns and Halfbloods, and only leaving Pureblood families was supposed to be for the better of all witches and wizards. Now, however, she did admit that the killing didn't seem to have a reason. Purebloods were killed, Halfbloods were killed, Muggleborns were killed, and Muggles were killed… There was nothing to suggest why they all died, no common denominator to compare the killings to. She had to admit that them having no goal disturbed her, but secretly, she still didn't see much of a difference between the two rulers.

That was the 'Dark Empire'. The 'Light Kingdom' (something else that Ginny had nicknamed), she had surmised, wasn't much better. It was good in its own ways, but in many ways it was the 'Dark Empire' that seemed better. It made all this 'choosing sides' thing nonsense, especially as most people supported the Light but did nothing – there were only so many fighting for both sides. Ginny just thought it was all ridiculous. She didn't support the Light. That said, she didn't support the Dark either. She was neutral through and through. She swore to herself that she wouldn't take sides in a meaningless war.

The Light went around killing all of the known members of the Dark. She hadn't thought too much of this at first, but then it turned out that one man _wasn't_ killed and was just cursed on sight. The sad thing was that he'd been under the Imperius curse – presumably courtesy of the Dark Lord. When Ginny had first asked her mother about it, she'd said that they were dangerous, and it was curse first and ask questions later, because they could quite easily be hexed or killed by the 'Dark Empire'. None of the questions were ever answered though; Death Eaters would never give the Light the satisfaction of their master's plans, even those under the Imperius curse; they wouldn't – or couldn't - answer questions. So, the plan had deteriorated into a kill first, don't get around to asking any questions sort of state. A weary and vastly aging Dumbledore was doing his best to still ask questions, apparently, but she'd never seen or heard of a case were questions had been asked in nearly four years. That was the main reason that Ginny didn't agree with the Light ideals – and she thought that it was a very good reason, too.

The whole war was disconcerting and very stupid, in Ginny's opinion. Why there even _was _a war was no longer clear to her. To the world, now, it just seemed natural to always be at war. As the population dwindled due to war, no one seemed to think about it. They just went on, killing more and more people in a seemingly pointless charade; a challenge; a contest to see who had more power; a contest with no clear winner. Ginny didn't think that there would ever be a winner. It would have to boil down to some kind of ceasefire if the world wanted peace. However, both sides seemed far too proud for that. Ginny had a sneaking suspicion that the 'Dark Empire' was far stronger. Their leader rarely seemed to do anything in unimportant raids; he'd just watch over his followers and order them to take a bunch of people back with them. She shuddered to think what went on there… No one, apparently, had seen him duel seriously. When he felt the need to fight he moved lazily, though he always stayed terribly alert.

Ginny knew. Oh, she knew. After all, she'd been there on numerous occasions…

Then again, it was said that nobody had seen Albus Dumbledore duel seriously either. Her old headmaster wasn't quite as relaxed in his movements as the mysterious Dark Lord (although, Ginny mused, that could be because of his age. He was far older than the young and mysterious new Dark Lord), but he still seemed to find little competition in fighting the Death Eaters. The difference, though, was that Dumbledore usually fought with his side, instead of just being there to oversee it all.

Due to the Dark Lord's seeming reluctance to fight and aid his Death Eaters, some of the 'Light Empire' (which did then, and still did, mainly consist of the Order) got rather cocky and decided that the Dark Lord must be weak, and so they sent numerous curses at him. Needless to say, that was the day that the Light had their biggest loss to date: all who openly opposed the Lord by attacking him were killed, plus a few others that suspiciously seemed to have just died for 'good measure'. After that, everyone decided that it was a very good thing that the Dark Lord showed a lack of enthusiasm for participation in raids. If he had fought in them, so she'd heard Fred and George say not long before Fred's death, the Light thought that there would have been at least double the deaths if he had gone around recklessly killing. That was another thing though, Ginny mused, the Lord _wasn't _recklessly killing, and everyone in the Light were acting as if he was – yet another sign of the deception that the Light seemed to use to corrupt people to join their ranks. They needed fighters – what side didn't need new recruits in a war – but Ginny thought that it was a very dirty tactic, though she had shared this opinion with nobody; her opinions didn't seem to be widely shared, mainly because a lot of people seemed to be living in blissful ignorance. She didn't really blame them; it was a lot better to fool yourself about the current state of affairs, particularly as it didn't seem to look like they were ever going to get any better.

So stuck was she in her thoughts, she didn't notice her brother enter the room.

"Er, Ginny?" George asked hesitantly.

Ginny blinked and turned to face her brother. He looked so solemn. It hurt her a lot to just look at George now, as she was reminded of Fred, as they were both practically clones of each other… they didn't have that sort of problem with Ron. In fact, when she looked at him, she had to stop herself asking if it was Fred. Deaths were frequent and people were used to them, but it didn't mean that people accepted them openly. Everything just seemed so surreal… Seeing his concern at her not answering, she forced a smile. "Hi. What did you call me here for?"

A grim smile spread across George's face. She knew that this wasn't good news because it was the first smile since Fred had died. "Yeah, I want you to come and join us."

She blinked again. "Us?"

"I'll explain when you're there. It's time you were allowed in on this. Katie convinced me that you could handle it."

Ginny stared at him. "Okay…" she said softly, deciding that arguing probably wasn't worth it. Besides, her brothers never seemed to listen to her, nowadays. They were too busy going away doing things that they tried to cover from her: she wasn't stupid; she saw through their excuses, but she didn't know what they were hiding. _Maybe it's time for me to find out… _She wondered, a more real smile spreading across her face this time.

Her brother smiled properly this time, too. "Good. Follow me."

Frowning slightly, she followed him into a room around the back of the shop. She'd never been in there before and had always assumed it led to some kind of storeroom. _Apparently not… _she thought as she was led into a room with a big massive table with lots of chairs around it – most occupied. The room was strangely reminiscent of what the Order of the Phoenix headquarters looked like when they had meetings.

Everyone nodded at her in some kind of formal manner, which made Ginny feel uneasy. _Just what am I getting myself into?_

"Ginny, " he repeated, "We'd like you to join us."

She stared at her brother as if he'd grown two heads. "Join what? What _is _this?"

"Well, we don't exactly have a name. It's kind of like the Order –"

She suppressed rolling her eyes. "Ah. Resistance group, then? Light fighting Dark?"

George nodded. She sighed. "George, you _know _that I want to stay neutral in this war. I don't want to take sides."

He sighed. "I'm not happy about this Ginny, but there is a certain reason why we specifically asked you. Can you at least give this first meeting a chance?"

She looked around. She recognized several people – Katie, obviously, Alicia, Angelina, Luna, _Colin Creevey… _She stared at him. _He _was here? That was someone that she hadn't expected. People in Ron's year at school – Parvati, Padma, Neville… Those she knew were giving her pleading looks. She nodded reluctantly, but said, "why's everyone in this room so… young? From our schooldays, I mean…"

George raised an eyebrow. "Because the Order still exists."

"Oh, I get it! Despite the fact everyone's in their late twenties, we're still considered the 'kid's group'." Everyone was staring at her. Her brother seemed to be holding back a laugh. "_What?" _she demanded fiercely.

"Actually, it's just easier to have two active groups doing different things, and the easiest way to split it was by age." Ginny blushed and scowled at her brother, before going sitting down at a seat as near to the door as possible.

"Well, anyway, we're just waiting for –"

Two people suddenly came running into the room, and Ginny thought she heard someone mutter, "speak of the devil." She nearly smiled, but was caught by the state of the two who'd walked in.

"Finnigan's dead," drawled one of them who didn't look or sound remotely sad, and she recognized him as Draco Malfoy. She almost fell off her chair. _What's he doing here? I thought he was a Death Eater! _"It seems that the Dark Lord decided to aid his allies, today. Killed Finnigan but didn't kill _him_." He gestured to the guy next to him.

Ginny turned her gaze on him and recognized him: it was Dean Thomas. She thought it was rather amusing that they worked together, though they barely seemed to tolerate each other from all the glaring that they were doing.

Malfoy rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, and where were you, _Malfoy?" _spat Dean, "hiding behind a tree?"

"Well, one of us actually had to do what we were meant to, and seeing as you two are forever acting like incompetent morons…"

"I am not an incompetent moron, Malfoy! Besides, I didn't get killed, did I?"

"Close though, weren't you, Mudblood?"

"Shut up, Malfoy!" It was her brother who spoke that time. Ginny secretly wondered why on Earth Malfoy was part of something against the Dark Lord, run by her brother no less. The fact that Malfoy's attitude hadn't changed was at least a little comforting, though.

"What are you going to do if I don't, Weasley?" Non-the-less, he went and sat down.

"Right," said George, ignored Malfoy as best as he could and turning to Dean. "Did you get rid of _him_?"

"Weren't you listening, Weasley?" snorted Malfoy. "Whilst Finnigan and the mudblood were trying to act brave and take on the Dark Lord, _I_ got rid of _him_ for you."

"Good," said George, fighting to still sound pleasant at his comrades rudeness. "Now," he turned back to Dean again. "As you're the only person to really come up against the Dark Lord, did you manage to find out _anything _about him?"

"Not really," was the reply. "When he was staring at me, he looked haunted or something. He honestly looked like he was about to _cry _or something…"

Everyone stared at him. Ginny raised an eyebrow at the interest. "The Dark Lord looked he was going to cry? He's the Dark Lord! He _doesn't _cry," said Colin slowly. Dean glowered at him.

"He is human, you know! He probably does cry! Anyway, he just said to get out of there before he changed his mind, and-"

"And like the coward that he is, he went running away instead of staying to find out more about a potential weakness," Malfoy sneered.

Dean scowled, but looked thoughtful. "I never thought of it as to be looking for weakness…"

"You wouldn't," Malfoy grumbled. Ginny rolled her eyes, and was about to speak when another voice spoke. Michael Corner. She started. She hadn't even known that he was there until then!

"Just great, isn't it?" His voice was laced with sarcasm. Ginny thought that he was a sounded a lot worse than he'd ever done at school (which was saying something). "The 'saviour' goes and gets squashed by this guy like he's a fly, and we're left behind to pick up the pieces…" There were murmurs of agreement from practically all around. Ginny stood up, eyes blazing.

"We were just kids when he rose, we couldn't do anything! Harry was just a kid, too! You can't expect him to do everything when he was only seventeen! He probably never even had a chance! You know what happened; he was obliterated! They never even found his body. They found Ron and Hermione's though, and they were just as helpless… well, Ron was dead before, they said, but Hermione was killed in the blink of an eye too!" Tears trickled down her face.

"I don't think he meant that," said Neville. "He just meant that the world all believed that Harry would solve the problem for them. Nobody thought that he'd die."

"Well, he did die, didn't he?" she yelled. _Why did I even join this place? _she wondered.

George raised an eyebrow. "Okay, Ginny. Look. We wanted you here for a reason, and that's because you're neutral, so you probably wouldn't reject the offer…"

She rolled her eyes. "And what do you want me to do?"

"We need someone to spy on the Dark Lord and inform us of attacks, motives and weaknesses, but no one wants to volunteer…"

"So you send your younger sister?" She stared at him incredulously. "And why do you get the impression that I'll want to do this?"

"Technically, he thinks you'll still be neutral," said the soft voice of Luna. "If you're in both camps, you're neutral. That's what he thinks."

"That's ridiculous!" She yelled. "I'll be Light, because I'll be reporting information to you!"

"Yes, but you get a glance into both camps, Ginny," said Dean.

"Supposing I would do this," She said slowly. "How exactly do you expect me to join? What do I do, go up to someone, risk getting killed while explaining I want to join them for no apparent reason?" Her voice was bitter, as she glowered at her brother. Ginny wasn't sure whether or not she wanted to risk it; she wasn't even sure if she wanted to be a member of this resistance group.

"Ginny, please, we really need the information, they're killing for no reason! Innocent lives will be saved!"

They would. She knew that they would. She gave a long-suffering sigh, and glowered at her brother. "Fine, but you owe me some of your profits from this company for this!" He gave a real smile, which Ginny was happy about. It was odd seeing her brother without both his twin, and his grin.

"Don't worry about it."

She sighed, "Oh, I probably will," but walked out of the meeting room before anybody else could respond.

* * *

_I looked at them, and instantly knew who they were. From school, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan… of course I remembered them, on some kind of level. But I couldn't recognize them or recognize myself, so I had to go ahead and act the way I thought was best. Not to mention that I needed to show them I was serious; they treated me like a wimp and I am NOT a wimp. _

_I killed Seamus, and then Dean started hurling obscenities at me. Quite funny, really. I'd been planning on sparing him, but that kissed his chances goodbye. _

_Or it would have done. But then I looked at him properly. _

_Those eyes. Those bloody eyes. _

_I caught sight of his eyes. Blue eyes. You can get lost at sea in them. _

_Just like that kid. Exactly like her. As I stare at him, I don't see him. I see the girl. And I kill her. _

_She hadn't really done anything, but my anger got away with me. She had got me there though, she had lured Ron and Hermione there, but she never meant to. _

_Oftentimes I regret the decision to kill her. And then, there are the times I don't. Unfortunately, this isn't one of those times. So I let him go. Mad as I was, I still let him go. What else could I do? I felt rage pouring through me at the foreign feeling – helplessness, and my hand automatically slid up to beneath the cloak that covered my head. I clasped my forehead and hissed in pain. One day, the nonsensical pain up there was definitely going to drive me insane. Then again, everybody thought I was insane in the first place, so I suppose it doesn't matter… _

_I manage to calm myself down, miraculously, when I went back to thinking about Dean. He'd be back; I knew that. He wanted to fight me, and I'd seen him fight my legions, as I call them. I know that I can't kill him – not that I'd tell them that. I think it's time to send some guys on a private mission – a mission to get rid of him. A test, I could call it, to see who's up to scratch. They can kill him._

_Opposing me does NOT go down well. _

_

* * *

_Revised 13/11/05. 


End file.
